Category Archives: Quick Breads and Muffins

Coconut Bread

Posted on February 10, 2010 by Geek Baker| 2 Comments

A while ago I purchased coconut for my Nanaimo Bars…well, bags were on sale *Buy 1, Get 1 Free* and thus two bags of shredded coconut made their way into my cart. Then, as if by fate, last week I came across Bill Granger’s Coconut Bread recipe and knew it was why I had purchased that second bag.

Look on just about any serious food blogger’s website and you’ll sure find it there. It is a classic recipe for good reason. Its moist, rich, and simple to put together. This is certainly *company bread* if there ever was. It can be served any time of the day, but since it is best toasted it makes for a very special breakfast.

Enjoy!

(My original version…)

Coconut Bread

adapted slightly from Seven Spoons
who adapted it slightly from
Bill Granger’s

(Note: The following recipe makes 1 loaf. I doubled mine to make one plain loaf and one chocolate chip loaf.)
Ingredients -

2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups milk (I used soy)
1 tsp vanilla (I used 1 tbsp vanilla because I *heart* vanilla…)
2 1/2 cups flour, more for dusting pan
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons cinnamon (I upped this to 3 tsp)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup superfine sugar (I only had regular sugar on hand)
5 ounces flaked coconut – around 1 1/2 cups (I ended up using sweetened shredded coconut. I have read that people use all types of coconut here with good results…unsweetened, sweetened, flaked, shredded….)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly (I used vegan ‘butter’)
Soft butter for greasing the pan (I used olive oil spray)
Semi-sweet or bittersweet chocolate or any other add-ins if you desire it…I think dried fruit would be lovely in this bread as well.

Directions –

1. Preheat an oven to 350°F.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla seeds (or liquid vanilla). Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir in the sugar and coconut. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and slowly add the egg mixture, stirring until just combined. Fold in the melted butter, being careful not to over-mix. (This is also where you would stir in any additional ingredients you would like…I mixed in 1/2 cup high quality bittersweet chocolate chips into one of my loaves.)

4. Grease and flour a 8-by-4-inch loaf pan. (I sprayed my loaf pans with olive oil spray and then created a sling out of parchment paper. (I got the idea from Seven Spoons!) This makes it MUCH easier to get the bread out of the pans. See picture below.) Pour in the batter and bake in the preheated oven until the loaf is golden and a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean, around 1 hour. (I ended up having to bake mine a bit longer than this….around 65-70 minutes, I believe.)

5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in its tin for 5 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack. (This is where you can just pull up on your parchment sling.) Position it again side up to cool a bit more.
6. Slice thickly and toast, or serve as is. (This bread is amazing toasted with some butter. I have also seen people like it with a dusting of powdered sugar or various jams and marmalade. This bread also freezes very well.)

(My chocolate version…)

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Posted in Breads, Quick Breads and Muffins

Pumpkin-Cranberry Muffins (w/ an optional streusel topping)

Posted on November 15, 2009 by Geek Baker| 1 Comment

So, what’s a girl to do on the weekend? Bake muffins, of course. (She also cooks lunches and dinners for the next week, reads books and newspapers, writes – which she needs to do more often, and goes for blissful runs on lovely Autumn mornings….)

I grabbed a can of pumpkin (which was on special at the grocery store – its all about being thrifty this holiday season) and looked for a good recipe. I decided to go with pumpkin-cranberry muffins (since I’ve had a bag of frozen cranberries in my freezer for ages) and added a streusel topping to some of the muffins just to see what kind of craziness would happen.

I ended up combining a few different recipes and here’s what I came up with for a recipe.

Cranberry-Pumpkin Muffins w/ Optional Streusel Topping

Ingredients:

Muffins:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 -15 oz can of pumpkin

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup fresh or frozen cranberries

Streusel Topping:

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/4 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

4 teaspoons butter

(I also topped my muffins with a sprinkling of Swedish Pearl Sugar)

Directions:

1. In a bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In a mixing bowl, beat the eggs and sugar; add the pumpkin and oil and mix well. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in the cranberries. Fill foil-or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full.

2. In a small bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons flour, 1/4 cup sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle topping evenly over muffin batter.

3. Bake at 375 degrees F for 24-28 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

pumpkin cranberry muffins

Verdict?

A pretty darn tasty muffin. I would certainly make these again. Since I was messing around with a couple of different recipes I ended up burning my first batch. (Are we surprised? No.) But the second batch (of which I took the picture of) turned out really well. Next time I would skip the streusel topping (its a sweet enough muffin without it) and add finely chopped walnuts to the batter (I think the flavor and texture would really add something). I should also note that if you don’t like that big burst of cranberry flavor (which I really adore), you can chop up the cranberries prior to folding them into the batter. This is make for a more mellow berry flavor throughout the entire muffin.

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Posted in Fruit Desserts, Quick Breads and Muffins, Swedish Pearl Sugar

Its a Pumpkin Bread-kind-of-Thursday…..

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Geek Baker| Leave a comment

So, I’ve had this can of pumpkin staring at me from my cupboard for ages. During a recent visit, my mom suggested making pumpkin bread. And, as its another cold, rainy day here in the midwest…..a little bread baking sounds warm and homey.

Plus, everyone claims it tastes better the second day which means the extra loaf I’ll be bringing to work tomorrow should go over well.

I just grabbed a recipe from allrecipes.com. While I love a lot of sites, when I want to make something fairly simple and for the first time, I generally look to see what they have. Then I can see what I like about the recipe, what I don’t, and then go looking for the *prefect recipe.*

(NOTE: I have only found one *perfect recipe* thus far in my short baking/cooking career. And it is the chocolate chip cookie. No, really. This is it. I don’t make them terribly often as the ingredients are expensive. But friends, when I make them, everyone tells me they are the best cookies they’ve ever eaten.)

Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread

Submitted By: Laurie Bennett on www.allrecipes.com

Ingredients:
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups white sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour three 7×3 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
3. Bake for about 50 minutes in the preheated oven. Loaves are done when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

My Experience:

Well, I didn’t fancy spending $9.99 on a jar of cloves, so…………..

I used 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice, heaping 1/4 teaspoons of cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.

It turned out well. A bit too sweet for my taste. I think I would cut back on the sugar and maybe even try fresh pumpkin instead of canned……I would prefer a bit more mellow of a taste.

BUT…..my co-workers seem to be enjoying it.